


Your Guide to Winter Trail Etiquette

by middyblue (daisyblaine)



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Double Entendre, Enemies to Lovers, Frottage, Introspection, M/M, New Year's Eve, Past Relationship(s), Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Skiing, Skiing as a Metaphor, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:13:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28436685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisyblaine/pseuds/middyblue
Summary: It’s not exactly a promising beginning to his New Year’s Eve ski trip weekend when David drops his bags on the couch of their little rented condo and Alexis’s new boyfriend, who’s wearing an ugly Christmas sweater almost a week after Christmas and crashing David’s plans, says in confusion, “Wait, but where’s Patrick going to sleep?”A story about things ending and things beginning, even if they come from somewhere unexpected.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Theodore "Ted" Mullens/Alexis Rose
Comments: 69
Kudos: 256





	Your Guide to Winter Trail Etiquette

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year! :D :D :D I found my 2020 Goals list the other day and I'd made SO MUCH HEADWAY up through the middle of March and then... nothing. But I DID write a shitton of fic, so, there's that.
> 
> The original title of this was Ski You Later, but it didn't seem to fit, as no one is leaving and also it's not Ted's point of view. Instead, I stole this title verbatim from an REI article. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> One warning: this references a few of David's pre-Patrick unhealthy relationships, mostly from canon but also with a few more details, including implied dubious consent as well as implied unhealthy drug and alcohol use in the past.
> 
> And a disclaimer: I disagree with narrator!David on a lot of things, from dogs to fake butter to his critical view of himself. The traumatic skiing incident, unfortunately, I do share. 100% recommend cross-country aka nordic skiing, because it's fun and wintry and has little chance of you accidentally flying down a mountain. You might fall, but if you're lucky you'll have someone there to fall with you.

It’s not exactly a promising beginning to his New Year’s Eve ski trip weekend when David drops his bags on the couch of their little rented condo and Alexis’s new boyfriend, who’s wearing an ugly Christmas sweater almost a week after Christmas and crashing _David’s_ plans, says in confusion, “Wait, but where’s Patrick going to sleep?” 

“Who’s Patrick?” If his tone is snotty, well, he’s been traveling all day to get here and is not in the mood to be thrown out into the whistling snow the day before New Year’s Eve to make room for the friend of some guy Alexis has known for three weeks. It’s warranted. 

“Patrick is Ted’s friend, David,” Alexis says, fixing the rolled cuff of her white cabled Cute Ski Chalet Look sweater, like she’s not fully aware of his strict No Patricks policy after the trilogy of Swayze, Dempsey, and Stump disasters to go along with his No Dance Instructors, No News Anchors, and No Birthday Clowns rules. 

Maybe he should revise that last one to No Clowns, full stop. July would’ve been less of a nightmare if he had. Hm. 

“I told you about him,” she adds carelessly. 

“That’s a lie.” 

“Whatever. You’re two grown men sad and alone on New Year’s; I’m sure you’ll get along fine.” 

“Okay, I resent that, and please don’t describe me that way ever again.” 

“Sorry to hear about your breakup, David,” Ted says, pulling a frown. “Over the holidays, geez. That sounds rough.” 

“Mm.” 

What is he supposed to say to that? _Yes, it sucks that after three months I was thrown over for an open relationship with people he didn’t even like._ Not even people Sebastien was attracted to; more than once he insinuated that they were useless in both casual and professional conversation, and still he chose them over David. 

In addition to David at first, apparently, and then flat-out instead of him. On Christmas. Maybe, _Thanks for your condolences. Please donate to the charity of your choice in lieu of flowers._

“Maybe your New Year’s Resolution should be to date people who actually like you,” Alexis says, scrunching her nose. 

“Go scream at an avalanche.” 

She makes a face at him and pulls Ted’s arm around her shoulders. Ted looks besotted, which even David can grudgingly admit is a nice change from Stavros’s self-centered bullshit, although it really is a lot for him to handle in this emotional state. 

“Can you not be like this right now?” 

“David —” 

“Okay, guys,” Ted says placatingly. “David, do you want some gingersnaps? I made a whole bunch earlier when Alexis told me what happened with your boyfriend.” 

They were _not_ boyfriends, but that’s not a point David feels is necessary to emphasize right now. 

Ted points over his shoulder to the kitchen table, at a plate generously piled with gorgeous brown cookies dusted with sugar. “I’m an anxious baker,” he adds with a modest shrug. 

David hesitates, then nods and goes to grab some. He’s grumpy and overtired, not an idiot. 

“Ted,” Alexis says in a sticky-sweet tone, “why don’t we let David get settled?” 

“I’ll settle you,” Ted says, nuzzling his nose against hers in a move that is frankly nauseating. 

Her reply gets cut off by a dog barking somewhere close by, muffled like it’s just behind a closed door, and Ted kisses Alexis’s cheek before hurrying off down the hall. 

“Why is there a _dog_ here?” David hisses at her, abandoning the plate of cookies to fold his arms tightly over his chest. This is a _delicate knit_ and he will die before he lets teeth or drool or fur anywhere near it, baked goods be damned. 

“It’s Ted’s dog, David.” 

“This whole trip was so that I could have a moderately non-depressing post-breakup getaway on a holiday dedicated to making single people feel inferior! Why did you bring your boyfriend? _Why is there a dog here?!_ ” 

Alexis rolls her eyes and drops down on the couch. Not for the first time in the past year, David feels painfully their fall from wealthy to… not. Instead of a week’s stay in one of the private chalets, they’re relegated to renting Klair’s father’s client’s ski-in/ski-out condo for a weekend. They’re sharing walls with the neighbors and these couches aren’t even fake leather; they’re some kind of polyester nightmare that look like they’ll leave itching _creases_ on skin. 

“It’s Ted’s foster dog,” Alexis says like David knows what that means, “and I wanted to kiss my boyfriend at midnight on New Year’s Eve, so sue me. And anyway, this _whole trip_ was to get you away from your Bridget Jones’ Diary DVD and those gross pretzels that you’ve been eating non-stop for the past week.” 

“I’m sorry if being dumped _on Christmas_ is proving difficult to get over. Next time I’ll try to get dumped in the off-season so that your holiday isn’t ruined when I need emotional support.” 

“Thank you, David,” Alexis says sincerely, clearly only half-listening as she scrolls on her phone. 

He rolls his eyes and goes to check out their view while he eats the cookies that are actually annoyingly delicious. The windows are big and bracketed with heavy burgundy curtains and overlook the ski slope that runs right past the condo’s back door. He wonders if someone he used to know might be out there flying past, not even seeing him looking out at them. 

“Why did you want to come here, anyway? You hate skiing.” 

“What, I can’t just enjoy the vibe of a chalet? And I hate skiing because of the time in Vail when we were on the black diamond —” 

“It was definitely green.” 

“—the _black diamond trail_ and you said we’d go down together and then you took off and _no one told me how to stop_.” 

“Oh my god. You were, like, eight years old, David, and it was barely a hill.” 

“It was _traumatizing._ I went straight down the entire mountain and only stayed upright through sheer force of will! I could have died!” 

“Are you going to be normal about this and not scare off Ted’s friend?” 

“Why is Ted’s friend even coming?” 

“Because Ted invited him.” 

“He’s a nice guy,” Ted says cheerfully, coming out of the side room with a brown dog of indeterminate breeding at his side. “He coaches Little League and he helped me get my clinic up and running. I think you’ll like him. Just as much as you’ll like Buster, here,” he adds, grinning down at the dog, whose thick-whip tail wags in response. 

“I’m sure,” David lies. “Where am I sleeping? In there?” He points to the bedroom down the hall, which is far enough from the living room that he might actually be able to get some quiet time alone away from the rest of them. 

“Actually, that’s our room,” Ted says. Alexis scrunches a smile up at him and David curls his lip. “I guess yours is that one, bud.” 

“The one that the dog just came out of.” 

“That’s the one! You’re not allergic, are you?” 

“Would it make a difference?” 

“David,” Alexis says curtly, in the tone that says _stop it_. 

“You owe me,” he tells her. “At least two things from my wish list.” 

“Don’t throw out your back carrying all of those bags to your room.” 

“Don’t be like that.” 

“I know it will be difficult for you, all alone in your advanced age.” 

“Don’t do that.” 

His room is tiny, just big enough for the double bed and dresser, and its solitary window looks out onto the parking lot where his taxi just dropped him off from the airport after charging him a truly painful sum. 

This is so not the getaway he’d had in mind. At this point in a post-breakup period in his previous life he’d be well on his way to blacked out by now, the world spinning by in a blur, carrying him along its dizzying current with no need to feel... this. 

And it’s not like he _liked_ Sebatien, he thinks as he unpacks his clothes carefully into the dresser. Its unvarnished drawers stick and he has to yank them side-to-side to pull them out, but at least the insides are clean and smooth with no splinters to snag the fabric of his clothes, the only relics he has left of who he was. 

He’s not even surprised that Sebastien joined the endless parade of dumpers. David’s only appeal to him was in the “tragedy of his circumstances,” and then when he didn’t dramatically fall apart, Sebastien just… lost interest. 

He’d said some bullshit about how David was “clouding his inner eye,” but it comes out to the same thing, really: David never seems to be able to find someone who actually wants to be around him. It’s an uncomfortable thought. And, honestly, _Sebastien_. The bar was low. 

Out in the living room Ted is saying something too quietly for David to make out, and Alexis giggles, free and genuine like when she was a kid. 

He closes the bedroom door but despite himself he smiles a little, smoothing out his folded tee in the drawer. It’s nice to hear her happy after the hellish year they’ve had, not knowing if their family was going to be okay or stuck living out of a seedy motel or under a highway overpass or something. 

He’s grateful that they’ve made it as far as they have, he really is; his dad managing to sell the assets the government had let them keep and then turn those funds into something that could moderately sustain them is, honestly, probably the best outcome they could have hoped for, barring their erstwhile business manager being visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past and guilted into returning all of the money. 

It would just be nice if David could be grateful and _also_ be able to convalesce from a particularly depressing breakup somewhere with a hammam spa. Or, at the very least, somewhere he could be certain that the dog hair on his bedspread was from the dog out in the living room and not from some random raccoon. 

He’s still unpacking, sorting his rolled socks by shade in the drawer, when he hears Ted’s moan and his sister’s squeal through the closed door and oh god. 

These walls are so thin, oh god oh god. 

This is _worse_ than the hypothetical overpass. This is worse than the time when he passed out in the backseat of Albany’s Range Rover at the end of a night out and she and Candy drove him all the way from LA to Vegas on a coke binge without noticing he was there. This is worse than the time in Bali when he went swimming off the boat in the dream-blue ocean and the boat _left without him_. 

He trips over to where he’d left his coat flung across the bed and wrestles it on over his shoulders; it’s only half-on when he hears a scratch and whine from inside the closet. 

He panics for a moment, flashing to, like, a haunted Victorian doll or a forgotten furby or something, but he steels himself enough to poke, terrified, at the half-open closet door. 

It squeaks further ajar and reveals the stupid dog sitting there, blissfully unaware that it’s just shaved years off of David’s lifespan. 

“How did you get in there?” he asks it, baffled. “How did you get in _here_? The bedroom door’s closed.” 

The dog doesn’t answer, just looks up at him with big sad eyes and no. No. This is not happening. 

“This is not happening,” he tells it, in case that helps the situation. 

The dog drops the blue nylon leash from its mouth onto the top of David’s foot and the noises from the living room are coming louder and more frequent; oh god. 

“Fine,” he says shortly, waving his hands palm-out in surrender, and then clips the leash onto the little metal loop on the dog’s collar. “We’re operating on the theory that you are the lesser of two evils here. I’m going to open this door and then we’re going to run, do you understand me? _Run_.” 

The dog looks up at him and its flat pink tongue lolls out of its mouth in a goofy smile. 

“Oh, god. What am I doing? No, okay. On three, got it? One, two _three._ ” 

He snaps open the door and hurries, one arm bent protectively around his face like fucking Dracula, to the front door. He hears another moan he really doesn’t want to hear before he manages to wrench the door open and throw himself outside. Luckily, the dog follows on his heels, seeming pleased as punch at this turn of events. 

Great. Okay. What now? 

The wind blows miniscule flakes around his face and the dog tugs the leash towards the trees on the edge of the parking lot; he guesses it makes sense that dogs prefer being in nature over walking on cold pavement. There’s even what looks like a snowy path through the trees, which would be an ideal setting to spend his sexile, generally being moody and feeling sorry for himself. 

“Fine,” he tells the dog, who ignores him and keeps pulling the leash. “I can accept this. We’ll go for a quick walk and then guilt Alexis into paying for takeout when she’s done doing that all over the common furniture.” 

Stepping from the parking lot into the woods seems to be yet a higher form of bliss for the dog. It sniffs at every tree and twig sticking out of the snow and stops to lift its leg every few feet and more than once sticks its entire face into the snow, apparently unbothered by its white nose when it looks up at David again, like it wants to make sure he’s still there. 

“I’m on the other end of this leash,” he tells it. “I’m not going anywhere.” The dog dances forward, its paws kicking up snow. 

There are ski tracks on the path, but it’s mostly flat and no one’s come through. It must just be a side path for people to get from the slopes on the other side of the treeline to the parking lot, he figures. Occasionally he can catch a glimpse of a downhill skier sailing past through a break in the trees, but mostly it’s quiet in here, just him and the dog and nature. 

“Alone again,” he quotes to the dog, who ignores his completely apt Love Actually reference in favor of checking out some small animal’s paw prints around a tree. “Naturally.” He tentatively scratches his nails through the short wiry fur along the dog’s back, and its tail wags loosely. Maybe he can do this. 

It’s actually a nice break from the city, being here. He’s only got about fifteen more minutes of Being Outside left in him, after which point he’s going to loudly bang his way back into the condo with his eyes firmly shut and disrupt anything still going on, but for now this is nice. 

His boots crunch the snow satisfyingly underneath his feet, it smells clean here in a way it never does in the city, and the dog is an oddly comforting presence at his side — maybe because it doesn’t talk to him, or expect him to feel a certain way, or judge him for yet another failed attempt at being close with another person; it’s just happy to be here, sniffing at some other dog’s yellow snow. 

“That’s gross,” he tells it sternly. “Don’t do that.” 

The dog, of course, ignores him, and doesn’t move on until it’s ready. 

Maybe it’s good that he and Sebastien broke up when they did, he thinks, doing his best to keep up as the dog tugs him up the slight incline. It would’ve been a different kind of painful to have to watch Alexis be with someone who actually makes her laugh, to watch her fall in love or at least the closest approximation of it that either of them has managed, with Sebastien at his side like this dog, tugging David in whichever direction he smells something interesting. 

Sebastien who demanded sex and David’s attention on his terms only; Sebastien who never once asked for David’s opinion or how he was feeling or what he wanted out of life; Sebastien who ultimately discarded David like last year’s puffer coat. 

He wants more than that. He wants, as Alexis so tactfully put it, someone who actually likes him. 

The dog takes this moment of introspection to pick up a twig and start chewing it in the middle of the trail, spitting out splinters as it goes. 

“Okay, are you supposed to do that?” David asks, wrinkling his nose. “I know dogs theoretically like sticks, but I’ve definitely seen at least one Law & Order where somebody died because of a toothpick stuck in their throat, and accidentally killing Ted’s dog is not how I want to start my new ye—” 

Something heavy slams into him, knocking him face-first to the ground, pinning him bodily with the air knocked out of his chest. The snow is fucking cold and rough against his cheek but all he can do is blink. 

“Fucking _ow_ ,” is all he can say when his lungs start working again. His entire body hurts. Does he still have a body? 

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” the other guy says above him, his voice strained. “What were you thinking?” 

The weight lifts unevenly from David’s back and his lungs expand a little more as the guy awkwardly rolls onto his knees at David’s side. 

“What was _I_ thinking?” he wheezes. “What the fuck were _you_ doing?” 

The dog tugs at its leash still wrapped around David’s wrist, which is how he knows that he at least hasn’t lost Ted’s dog. David gingerly pushes himself up, touching the sore spots of his face to make sure there isn’t blood or anything. 

God. What a fitting way to end the worst year of his life. 

“You were standing in the middle of the trail! I could have broken my ankle!” 

David finally looks at his assailant, whose face is red under his navy toque and dark eyes furious as he twists the long skis attached to his short boots the right way round. 

“You knocked me down!” 

“You were standing in the middle of the trail with your back to the hill!” 

“The dog had a stick!” The guy furrows his eyebrows and David runs that sentence back in his head. “Okay, it’s not my dog and I didn’t want it to die from a splinter puncturing its throat.” 

“Right.” 

The guy tries to push himself up on his ski poles, wobbling as his skis slip a little in the snow, and without thinking David holds out his arm for balance. He gets a grateful look for it, which is something. “I’m Patrick, by the way.” 

“Oh god, another one?” 

“What?” 

“Nothing,” David says quickly. 

“Uh huh. So you took someone else’s dog onto the ski trail in the middle of one of the busiest ski days of the year. Did you not see the sign at the entrance telling you that A, no dogs are allowed during the season, and B, skiers coming down the hill have the right of way?” 

“I did not,” David says primly. There might have been a sign, but he definitely didn’t read it. “I usually stay in the chalets. And I don’t appreciate your tone.” 

“My tone — Look, whatever. I’m fine, you’re fine, it’s fine. Just, please, take the dog somewhere else.” The guy — _Patrick_ — gives him a weary look. “And for the love of god, get off the trails. You kicked up all the tracks….” Patrick’s irritated voice trails off as he skis away, and his skis do get jammed up by the spots where David’s bootprints disturbed the even parallel tracks that had been there before. Oops. 

He does have quite a good ass, though. _Skiers_ , David thinks to himself, and shakes his head. 

“Okay, now that you’ve mortified me and possibly caused me injury, do you think we can head back?” he asks the dog, who looks up at him innocently. “You know, if this were a romantic comedy, instead of nearly killing me you would tie our legs together or something and be charming and irresistible, thus making me look charming and irresistible by association.” 

He takes care to walk to the side so he doesn’t disturb Patrick’s ski tracks this time, but the dog doesn’t seem to care about any of it. Useless creature. 

** 

When he gets back to the condo, Ted is busy doing something over the stove and Alexis is perched on the kitchen counter next to him. 

There’s a fire crackling in the brick fireplace but the two of them curve towards each other like the other emanates warmth, apparently unaware that they’re doing it. They look cozy and coupled and David almost feels guilty intruding on them, even though this was supposed to be _his weekend_. 

“David!” Ted says happily when they finally notice that they’re no longer alone. “Oh good, you did have him. Hey, boy!” 

Ted crouches down and opens his arms and his grin matches the dog’s as it bounds over to him to lick his face, which cannot be sanitary. David cringes and looks up at Alexis, who’s making a horrified face. 

“Ted, are you going to wash your face?” Alexis asks in the same tone Adelina used to ask them _Are you going to brush your teeth?_ when they snuck a cookie before bed. 

“Oh, right. Of course, babe. Can you watch the sauce, though? Just stir it a little so it heats evenly and doesn’t burn.” 

Ted leaves for the bathroom, the dog at his heels, and David tilts his head skeptically at Alexis, whose loving smile turns panicked as soon as Ted’s out of the room. 

“I didn’t know you could cook,” David says, barely not laughing at her. “In fact, I vaguely remember you almost burning down Rideau Hall.” 

“David, you and I and the RCMP all know that I can’t cook!” 

“What is he making, anyway?” 

She shrugs and says vaguely, “Dinner.” 

In a big shallow pan on the stove there’s a red sauce with ground beef simmering and it smells really good, tomatoey and garlicky, and Alexis forces the wooden spoon Ted gave her into his hand. 

He hesitantly stirs the sauce around the pan once and nothing disastrous happens. Alexis gives him a wide-eyed impressed look, which is heartening. 

There’s a knock at the door and Ted shouts from the bathroom, “Can you get that, babe? I think it’s Patrick!” 

“What’s Ted doing in there that’s taking so long, anyway?” David asks Alexis, still stirring. “I assumed he was a splash-of-water-and-bar-of-soap kind of guy, not that that’s acceptable.” 

“I gave him one of your face washes,” Alexis says, hopping down from the counter. “Serum and lotion, too.” 

“You did what?!” 

“I had to give him something, David. His skin was all dried out.” 

“You know I have to ration that now! I can’t afford to replace it on my paycheck from the goddamn Blouse Barn!” 

She pulls open the front door and gasps with her big fake grin that she uses on strangers that she thinks are cute. “You must be Patrick!” 

“I am,” a vaguely familiar voice says. Oh god. “Thanks for having me.” 

“David, come meet Patrick, please.” 

He squeezes his eyes shut and relishes this last second of peace before turning around, faintly aware that he still has the stupid wooden spoon in his hand. 

“Hi,” he manages. Patrick raises his eyebrows. “So you’re Ted’s friend Patrick.” 

“I am Ted’s friend Patrick. You know, I never did get your name.” 

“I’m Alexis, and this is my brother David,” Alexis interjects, her hand on Patrick’s arm. “His latest ex dumped him last week, and he’s still kind of going through it. I’m sorry for him in advance.” 

“Thank you, Alexis,” David says tightly. “So you — you’re a skier.” 

“I am. I drove up earlier today and rented a pair of cross-country skis to get some air and stretch my legs. I was really looking forward to it, too, because I love skiing but I haven’t been able to go in years. Unfortunately, I didn’t know I’d have to look out for someone stopped in the middle of the trail, which kind of disrupted the whole experience.” 

“Mhm,” Alexis says. “Well, we’re in the middle of making dinner. David, why don’t you let Patrick stir for a while?” 

“I’m sure he doesn’t want to cook right now,” David says weakly. 

Alexis just beams at Patrick, and he does what any man does when faced with that look and gives in, taking the spoon from David. He smiles at Alexis and gives David a look like he’s totally unimpressed and it’s just too much. 

David has to get out. 

“I’m going to go check on Ted,” David says, his mind frantic. Check on Ted, spoon-feed the dog, do a load of laundry, rearrange his sock drawer, sketch out a business idea his dad will actually approve of…. Literally anything. 

“ _I_ will check on Ted,” Alexis says. She widens her eyes at David and meaningfully juts her chin at Patrick, whose back is blessedly turned for this part of the conversation. _Talk to him_ , she mouths. _He’s cute._ David shakes his head at her and she gives him the OK sign as she goes, horrible as ever. 

“So,” Patrick says, still stirring, “did you manage to avoid killing anyone else today?” 

Jesus fucking Christ. 

With the hand not stirring Patrick opens a few drawers until he finds the silverware, then takes out a spoon and tastes the sauce, his lips wrapping around the spoon, pink and soft and thoughtful; what the _fuck_. 

“I didn’t kill you,” David says. His voice comes out shrill and he wills himself to keep it the fuck together. It’s just horny emotional transference. That’s all this is. _Horny emotional transference_ , he thinks, and holds onto it. 

“Not for lack of trying,” Patrick says mildly. He turns the heat dial down and puts a lid on the pan, moving like he owns the kitchen. 

“Okay, are you intentionally being irritating? _Obviously_ I didn’t know you were going to come flying down the hill.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry, is my tone irritating you again?” 

“Yes!” 

To David’s great exasperation, Patrick just laughs, sudden and bright like he’s as surprised by it as David. 

“Sorry, David; you might have to get used to it.” 

He nudges David away from the sink so he can fill a pot with water, and then takes David by the shoulders to move him out of the way with hands broad and sure, his sleeves rolled up to expose muscled forearms — god, if David had known that cooking would involve so much touching maybe he would’ve started doing it years ago — and reaches for a spice rack hidden under a cabinet to get the salt, which he sprinkles in the pot of water and then puts it on the stove with a matching lid and turns up the heat, all of it in easy confident movements that are checking a whole lot of boxes for David right now. 

_Asshole_ , he thinks, and feels better. 

“Want to help me make some garlic bread?” 

“Wan— What?” 

“Garlic bread. You take sliced bread and add butter and garlic,” Patrick says, apparently unaware that David has been staring at his arms instead of paying attention. “And then heat it up if you’re feeling dangerous. Am I ringing any bells? Bread is this newfangled invention made with flour and water and yeast; you might have heard of it. If you’re lucky you can find it pre-sliced.” 

“Okay,” David says shortly, the dislike coming easier now. “I could do with a little less rudeness in my life today.” 

“Yeah, my life’s not going so great, either.” 

“What happened to you?” he asks, letting his tone go bitchy. Before Patrick can answer, he handwaves away the obvious. “Besides me, I mean.” 

Instead of answering, Patrick opens several cupboards before actually finding a loaf of bread. There is a second loaf and also several boxes of pasta, jars of sauce, boxes of cereal, granola bars, peanut butter, and cans of beans, all for a single weekend. 

“Ted is so reliable, he makes _me_ feel spontaneous. Um, I came out to my family a few weeks ago? It was fine. They’re fine. I just….” He turns the bread’s twist-tie in his fingers and David’s ire yields just a little. “I was sitting at the table for Christmas dinner last week with our whole family, cousins and aunts and uncles and everything, and realized that all day not one of them actually spoke to me. I mean, they weren’t _not_ talking to me; we made small talk and they’d ask me to pass the potatoes or whatever. It was just that all of a sudden they had nothing to talk to me about.” He glances up at David. “I’m not explaining it right.” 

“No,” David says, thinking of the years his family spent keeping their distance from each other even when they lived in the same house. “I am not unfamiliar with that dynamic.” 

Patrick’s mouth pulls to the side in a wry smile and despite himself David finds himself half-smiling back. 

“Here, lay out the bread slices and we’ll butter them.” Patrick sets a tub of butter “spread” (god help them) and two knives on the counter. “Anyway, it just kind of sucked. So instead of spending New Year’s with them like I was going to, Ted invited me to come up and spend it with him. He’s a nice guy. I, um. I’m really grateful that he invited me here. He has a good heart. Your sister is in good hands,” he adds, as if that’s not a promise that David has heard and seen broken before, once literally by a masseuse. 

“A nice guy who couldn’t spring for real butter,” David mutters as he smears some of the fake stuff on a slice of bread. 

“Excuse me?” 

“Well, I’m just saying.” David scoops a little bit of the “butter” on the end of his knife to examine; it’s weirdly pale and soft. Why? Why this? Surely real butter is not so much more expensive? 

“David.” 

“What?” 

“Did you buy any groceries?” 

“Well, no, but —” 

“So Ted bought all the food and brought it here for us and instead of thanking him you’re being a snob and complaining about his choices?” 

“Okay, wow. Dial it back, Clifton Sparks.” 

Patrick sets the little shaker of garlic powder down on the counter with an incredulous laugh. 

“Did you just call me a soap actor?” 

David crooks his jaw and retorts, “If the shoe fits.” That goddamn daytime soap is in his _genes_ ; he can’t get rid of it. 

“That’s like…. That reference has to be at least twenty years old.” 

Instead of dignifying that or Patrick’s obvious amusement with a response, David takes the stupid garlic shaker from Patrick in order to expedite the cooking process and get out of this conversation as quickly as possible, but then there’s a weird inner plastic lid under the outer plastic lid and he tries to pry it off but it won’t detach. 

Patrick takes it from his hands, his touch quick and dry, with what looks like a barely suppressed eyeroll. The lid comes off easily for him — Patrick seems like someone for whom _everything_ comes easily — and he shakes it over the bread like David meant to do. 

This is not an experience that David needs right now. 

He says as much, and that if he loved Alexis less he would kick her and her errant guests out into the cold. 

Patrick tilts his head at David, smiling a little, and David has to look away; it’s like he’s seeing something in David, something that could be good, and it’s incredibly off-putting. 

“I’m, um. I’m going to check on Alexis and Ted.” 

“Are you sure?” Patrick asks. He puts the bread in the oven and sets a timer on his phone. “I mean, I like Ted, but whatever they’re doing is not anything that I need to see.” 

“Okay, which thinly-veiled excuse will you buy so that I can go sit on the couch with my phone and pretend to be somewhere else? Literally, anywhere else.” 

“How about you put the pasta in and we’ll call it even?” 

“Fine.” David picks up the box of pasta and it has something that looks like instructions but what, exactly, is a “serving” in the context of four adults? How is he supposed to measure fifty-five grams? What _is_ a gram? Is it, like, a hundredth of a cup? 

Oh, for fuck’s sake. 

“Do you have a scoop thing?” 

Patrick smiles slowly; he tries to cover it with his hand, but he must not be trying very hard because David can see it clearly, and he does not appreciate it. 

“A scoop thing?” 

“You know, to….” He makes a scooping motion from the box to the pot on the stove. “Isn’t that how you do it?” 

“David, have you — have you ever cooked before?” Patrick asks, still grinning, and his smile is bright and genuine even while he’s being an asshole. 

“Shut up,” David says maturely. Mother _fucker_. 

He’s _cute_ , which is irritating, because David also hates him. 

God, how long has it been since David’s been around someone like Patrick? Sure, he’s annoying as hell, but his whole smiling thing is almost too bright, like the glare of sunshine off of snow; David feels like he has to shield himself from it. He’s not meant to come so close. 

All he can do in this cramped little kitchen, though, is lean against the counter and duck his head, letting Patrick’s laugh bound past him. 

“Alright, David, I’ll show you how to boil pasta,” Patrick says, patting him on the back. 

His hand trails down David’s spine, although whether it’s lingering or careless David can’t tell. 

It’s careless. It has to be. 

“The water is boiling,” Patrick is saying, careless. “I put some salt in for taste, and now we add the dry pasta. We could eyeball or measure out four servings, but for tonight we might as well just dump the whole box in.” 

Patrick takes the box from David’s hands, tears it open, and literally just turns it upside down over the boiling water. 

Okay, David may not be a savant in the kitchen, but he could’ve done _that_. 

“See? Easy,” Patrick says, enjoying this way too much. 

He wants to like Patrick for Ted’s sake, but good god is he condescending and judgey and overly sure of himself and a little rude and maybe too far in the other direction too, ostensibly teaching kids baseball in his spare time and standing up for Ted and his not-butter and teaching David how to boil pasta, and he keeps making David feel like such an idiot. 

He needs to get out of here. 

“I have to go pack,” David announces desperately. 

“Pack?” 

“Unpack. My, um. My shoes. I have to go… unpack my shoes.” 

With that, David makes as graceful an exit as he can and shuts the bedroom door behind himself, breathing in and out, the snow falling gently outside the window illuminated orange by the parking lot lights. 

** 

Alexis makes it known that she and Ted have finished their escapades by tapping her nails on his door and singing, “David! Dinner!” like she had any hand in making it. 

The night does not improve: dinner is tense and stilted, and afterwards Ted naively digs out the board game _Sorry!_ from the cabinet by the television. Despite the warning looks that Alexis shoots David as they’re setting up the game, he can only curb his impulses so far. 

By the fourth time Patrick goes, “Sorry!” and wipes David’s pawn off the board, David digs his fingers into the godawful couch to avoid flipping the fucking board over, because twice is a coincidence and three times is a pattern and the fourth time is a goddamn strategic attack. 

“This is not how the game is meant to be played!” David explodes when Patrick moves his pawn back to the start for him because apparently he’s not doing it quickly enough. Alexis rolls her eyes and slumps in her seat. 

“David, I’m just doing what the card tells me.” 

“You’re specifically going after my pieces!” 

“I’m just playing the game!” 

“Okay, guys —” Ted tries. 

“No,” David says firmly. “No. I cannot play this game with someone who’s specifically out to get me.” 

“David —” Patrick begins, his tone tinged with condescension, and it’s just too much. 

“No, I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” 

“David, come on.” 

“No, let him go,” Alexis says, and takes a drink. “It was always going to end like this. Do you guys want to watch something?” 

“Maybe we should all go to bed,” Ted suggests. “It’s been a long day.” 

David ignores them and goes to get his toiletry bag and sleep clothes so that he can get first claim to the bathroom. 

He calms down some as he does his routine and settles nicely into a low-lying seething rage. 

How fucking arrogant and self-centered do you have to be to crash someone else’s holiday weekend and then not even have the decency to be _polite_ — and, yes, he has some sympathy for Patrick, because coming out is hard and complicated and having a family who bats an eye can’t be easy, but still. 

He doesn’t have to be so annoying, and he doesn’t have to look like... like he _likes_ David while doing it. No, that’s not it. He doesn’t _like_ David; he likes _annoying_ David. 

There’s something else that has been gnawing at him, ever since he found out that the trip that was just supposed to be the two of them, the two Roses who knew intimately what it was like to grow up in that house and in that community of fame-seekers and one-uppers and people-users and then to lose it all; ever since he found out that Alexis was bringing her new boyfriend along, he’s had this bitterness at the back of his throat. 

He’s happy for her, he is, but for all that he’s done, for how hard he’s trying to make his life something bearable, why does she get to be the one to find a sweet man who genuinely loves her in her first ever real coworker? 

How does she get that when all David has is the goddamn Blouse Barn and Wendy, bless her, and fucking Sebastien and this sick black tar of loneliness in the pit of his stomach, no matter how hard he tries? 

And he’d _tried_ ; he’d dated that dance instructor who also dated half the company and that birthday clown who just up and left and _Sebastien_ , for fuck’s sake. 

It’s not that he wants to date _Ted_ ; he’s self-aware enough to know that _that_ situation wouldn’t end well for any of them. He just wants… someone nice. Someone he respects, who respects him. Someone he likes, who likes him. When does he get to be that lucky? 

To his horror, when he gets back to his room Patrick is _there_ , sitting on the bed. 

“What —” 

“So how do you want to do this?” Patrick asks, leaning back on his hands. David blinks and his mouth drops open a little. “Do you want to switch off who gets the couch?” Oh. 

“This is my room,” David says dumbly. Patrick sighs and sits up straight. 

“David, can we be fair about this?” 

“No. I refuse to sleep on that couch. I can’t do it. I am a grown man with standards that, yes, have been lowered recently, but still! My low-level bare-minimum standards preclude me from being able to sleep on that affront to home decor and good taste.” 

Patrick’s mouth curves a little and David has the distinct feeling that he’s being laughed at. 

“Okay, so, what? Do you want to share the bed?” 

“Wh— what about this: _you_ sleep on the couch.” He gestures out to the living room and raises his eyebrows pleadingly. 

“You want _me_ to sleep on that affront to home decor and good taste?” 

“Fine. Fine!” he snaps. “We’ll share the bed.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Y-yes.” 

“Okay. Let me go get ready.” Patrick takes his duffel bag and leaves the room with a pat on David’s arm. 

It must be nice to be that infuriatingly calm all the time, and to just accept things. 

It’s not that David is _inflexible_ ; it’s just that, yes, he has opinions and preferences and at some point over the last ten or fifteen years he just sort of… let them slide, if someone wanted something else from him. 

Losing most of the money and most of his friends along with it had turned things upside-down, but in a weird way it was like falling the other way through the looking glass: suddenly the things he’d known about the world were distorted and he was living in this reality with people like Wendy who are as disconnected from good taste as he is from knowing how to cook pasta, but who take him seriously, like what he says matters, like his opinions can’t be written over just because they’re inconvenient. 

If he were a silver lining person — which he’s not — he would find comfort in letting go of Sebastien, the last vestige of his former life that he was clinging to. He was the last person from the other side of the glass who was still interested in being around David without the money, even if his intentions were shit. 

But now David has a blank slate, more or less. He has his parents and Alexis and Wendy and… that’s it, so far, but at least they don’t expect him to get drunk before meeting up because he’s “more agreeable” that way. He has people who consider him a whole person and not just what they need in the moment. 

He’s slowly finding his footing again, feeling confident in the things he wants again, and he’s not going to compromise that, now that it’s all he has. 

It must be easier, though, to be like Patrick or Wendy and just… go with things. To not have to _try_ so hard all the time. He sits on the edge of the bed and breathes, his fingers absently running over the seams of the quilt. He thinks about the long stretch of the year ahead of him, and he’s exhausted by it. 

No. He can do this. It’s just two more days here. One and a half, really. Then it’s the new year, a new beginning… and back to the goddamn Blouse Barn. How different can the new year be? 

Wendy’s already been talking about a pre-Valentine’s Day clearance sale, and he’s going to need to figure out a way to make that happen without sacrificing _all_ of his remaining dignity. He pulls out his notebook and starts brainstorming, leaning back against the headboard without really thinking about it. 

He’s well engrossed by the time Patrick emerges from the bathroom, his hair wet and a damp spot on the back of his heather blue henley’s neck when he turns to put his bag in the closet. 

“Did you check to make sure that there’s no dog in the closet?” David asks, looking up from his notes. _Hire someone to steal the mannequins_ is the highlight, so clearly he’s making progress. 

Patrick doubletakes at the near-empty closet, then gives David a furrowed-forehead look. 

“Were you expecting a dog?” 

“Frankly, yes. That thing is sneakier than a dog has a right to be.” 

“Ah. I thought you might be making a coming-out joke.” 

David wrinkles his nose. “It would be cleverer than that.” 

“Right.” 

The mattress dips as Patrick climbs into bed next to David and he looks expectantly at David until he puts his notebook down and gets under the covers as well. 

“You’re okay with that, though, right?” David asks awkwardly, giving in to that niggling piece of his mind that has to make sure, then retraces his thought process to clarify. “Being out, I mean. You’re okay?” 

“I’m okay,” Patrick says. He smiles down at his hands in his lap. “I’m great, actually. It’s like a weight’s been lifted. I can figure out what I want without pressure to fit into that round hole that I’m too square for.” 

“Ew.” 

Patrick laughs softly. “Yeah. It’s good. Thanks for asking, though. You’re, um. The first person who has.” 

“Oh.” 

“And thank you for letting me crash your wallowing weekend.” 

“Okay,” David says shortly, ready to turn away from him and go to sleep. 

“I know you love Alexis too much to turn her out into the dead of winter, but I am glad you didn’t turn me out.” 

“You’re... welcome.” He doesn’t know what to say to that; the sincerity is uncomfortable. He almost wishes Patrick would go back to being annoying, so David could dislike him comfortably. “So, um. Good night, then.” 

“Night, David.” 

They each turn off a bedside lamp and then David’s curled in a loose C away from him, trying not to move or even breathe in the dark, too aware that Patrick can feel and hear every shift. Usually he’s too wasted to care when he’s sharing a bed with someone new, and oh, that’s not a thought he needs to explore right now. _Sleep_ , he tells himself sternly. 

“I mean, you said the dog not in the closet was chewing a stick when you almost killed me,” Patrick says suddenly. David rolls onto his back to look over at him in the dark, and in the dim light coming through the curtains he can make out Patrick’s head turning towards him, the hint of a smile on his lips. “A stick is kind of phallic, right?” 

It takes him a minute to process this, and he groans out loud and drapes his arm over his eyes. “I hate you.” 

“It’s alright. We’ll workshop it in the morning.” 

“Shut up,” he says, but the mattress shakes with his laughter. 

** 

David wakes slowly, nuzzling his head deeper into the comfortable furrow he’s in, his cheek rubbing against — what is that? 

He cracks his eyes open to see the blue cotton blend of Patrick’s shirt. 

Oh, god. 

A brief limb inventory lets him know that at least he didn’t drape himself over Patrick in his sleep, thank god, but he is still — nuzzled. On Patrick’s shoulder. 

His own shoulder is pressed into Patrick’s arm and his face is inches from Patrick’s armpit but — it’s really fucking comfortable. 

It’s sweet, too, in a way that aches in a quiet part of his heart, how Patrick’s head is tilted towards his; Patrick’s eyelashes flutter and his lips part just so as he breathes softly. 

His sleeve is rucked up by David’s cheek, exposing his tender upper arm at David’s mouth, and all it takes is the smallest shift, the merest movement, for his lips to gently brush against Patrick’s sleep-warm skin, soft as Patrick’s breath puffing against his hair, until he tilts his head down again, his forehead to Patrick’s steady shoulder. 

Patrick can’t know. He doesn’t know why he did it; he could never explain. 

He blinks long and slow against the cool morning light and he’s tired still, and warm, and he could just drift off… so he does. 

He wakes again when something hits the bed by his feet and opens his eyes with his heart racing to see the stupid dog smiling down at him, breathing its awful dogbreath in his face. 

“Mmph,” he accuses. He’s alone in the bed except for the dog, and the sheets are cool next to him like Patrick’s been up for a while. 

“Morning, sunshine,” Patrick says from the doorway, blocked from David’s view by the dog. David shoves the dog over, which it doesn’t seem to mind at all, and glowers up at Patrick, who raises his eyebrows and takes a sip from his mug as he leans against the door jamb. 

“Did you do this?” The dog licks his hand and he scowls. 

“Do what?” Patrick asks, but his cheeks are rounded like he’s only just holding back a laugh. “There’s coffee, by the way. I was going to make you eggs but I didn’t know how you like them.” 

“That’s… not necessary,” David lies, trying to shoo the dog with the force of his glare instead. It doesn’t work. 

Patrick’s mouth curves into one of his amused smiles that last night David would’ve interpreted as mocking but this morning almost looks _fond_ , which is not right. 

And David’s very aware that Patrick is fully dressed in jeans and a thick navy blue sweater while David is still in his sleep clothes, suddenly feeling awkward that he’s still in bed while Patrick’s up and started his day. He tugs the covers up to his chin. 

“I’ll let you get dressed. Come on, Buster,” Patrick says with a pat to his thigh and a whistle. 

The dog jumps off the bed and darts out of the room without a backward look; Patrick, on the other hand, glances at David again, still emanating that weird fond vibe, before he closes the door behind himself. 

David pulls the other pillow over his face and groans into it, which ends up being a mistake, because it smells like Patrick. 

“Fuck.” 

** 

“Ted and Alexis are already out,” Patrick tells him when he emerges, appropriately dressed and moisturized and coiffed. 

Patrick is drinking coffee on the couch, his ankle casually crossed over his other leg, a paperback book propped open on his knee. He sets his mug down on the coffee table and rests his arm across the back of the couch as he looks at David, and David has the distinct feeling that if he sat next to him in that waiting space, Patrick’s thumb would brush against his back, absently reassuring. 

They could do a crossword together. David’s dumb in some ways — all of his exes can attest to that — but he knows the obscure entertainment and fashion trivia like the back of his hand. They could drink coffee together and blink at each other sleepy-eyed and — What the fuck. No. 

Refusing to dignify that train of thought any further, David busies himself pouring coffee and getting the right coffee-to-milk-to-sugar ratio and by the time it’s acceptable he’s put that whole thing out of his mind. 

He sits on the other couch and drinks his coffee slowly, the dog curled up gnawing at a bone by his feet. 

“Where’s Alexis?” he asks, remembering Patrick had said something. 

“She and Ted are skiing. You know, because this is a ski resort.” 

“Mkay.” 

He starts to think, _Thank you, Patrick, for killing that fantasy_ , except he _hasn’t_ ; now in the fantasy Patrick teases David and David teases back and they laugh and kiss and Jesus _fuck_. 

“Do you want to come today?” 

“What?” 

“Cross-country skiing. Do you want to come with me?” 

“Because if I go skiing with you then you can keep an eye on me? Keep me from nearly killing other innocent tourists with my devil-may-care ways?” 

“Something like that,” Patrick says, smiling into his coffee mug. “Want to? It’s fun.” 

“I think we have very different definitions of the word.” 

Patrick laughs and closes his book on his thick finger — Jesus Christ, David needs to get laid. 

“Want to?” 

“What?” 

“Go skiing with me? We can rent equipment for the day, stop at the lodge for lunch and hot cocoa….” he trails off hopefully. 

“I could do that,” David says hesitantly, picturing sitting at the lodge in front of a fire with a spiked hot chocolate. It’s not a bad look, but. “We’re not actually skiing across the country, are we?” 

“No, David.” 

“Okay. Just so you know, I am not comfortable with a large amount of physical activity.” 

“Noted. Are you okay to ski in those clothes, or do you want to borrow something of mine?” 

“What are you saying?” David looks down at his outfit; it’s a good look, black pants and the black Rick Owens sweater with the gray panel artfully bunched in front. He feels good in it. He feels like himself. 

“Nothing. Just that that sweater looks expensive and I have some old college sweatshirts with me, if you want.” 

“I….” It’s true that he can no longer just buy another sweater if this one gets too funky for the dry cleaner to deal with, not even considering his dry cleaning budget. He is now the type of person who has a _budget_. “Fine. Um. Thank you.” 

“They’re at the top of my duffel. Pick whichever.” 

The unspoken _I trust you_ hangs in the air and David… doesn’t know what to do with that, so he leaves. 

Folded neatly at the top of Patrick’s duffel bag is a cardinal-red sweatshirt with TORONTO emblazoned in big letters across the chest, which he eschews for the second one, which is white with a smaller, more tasteful UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO. He pulls it on and it smells like laundry detergent. He’s not sure if he’s disappointed or relieved by this. 

** 

It’s a bright, clear day; the snow is clean-white and the sky is a rich blue and Patrick whistles, his hands stuffed into his pockets, as they walk over to the rental shack. 

He’s surprisingly helpful and not all that condescending when David’s picking out his skis and boots and poles, which David appreciates, and even though their sales associate is a hunk of the rugged outdoorsman order — the guy probably showers like twice a week but can pull off flannel and chop firewood like nobody’s business and fuck someone even David’s size while holding them up the entire time — Patrick doesn’t flirt with him; he just makes sure that David’s happy with how the boots fit, and triple-checks the lock on their locker when David gets worried about his boots being stolen. 

It’s weird. 

“So exactly how much exercising are you expecting me to do?” David asks once they’re geared up, standing on the stretch of mostly-flat ground outside the rental shack partway down the slope, with the downhill skiers all buckling themselves into their skis around them. He squints against the glare of the snow, trying not to look down the rest of the mountain, and Patrick shrugs. 

“Only as much as we want to do. If you want to stop and hang out at the lodge for the afternoon, that’s fine with me. I might keep going, but don’t let me stop you from doing what you want.” 

“Um. Okay.” 

“Are you — you have skied before, right?” 

“It was a long time ago.” 

“Okay. Cross-country or nordic skiing is a little different from downhill or alpine, because you have to create your own momentum. It’s kind of like skating, a little, but your feet stay pointed forward.” 

“Okay.” David stares down at his feet, and for a second feels like his skis might go out from under him, that at any moment he might lose his grip on the earth and fall, fall, fall. Patrick gently takes his arm, as if he can tell, and his eyes are lit up golden in the sunlight as he looks earnestly into David’s. 

“You’ll be fine. The cross-country trails are pretty flat and if you do fall, the snow will cushion you. Hell, _I’ll_ probably fall at least once.” 

“Will you.” 

“You fall, I fall,” Patrick says with a smile, and it sounds _sincere_ and far too close to a RomCom moment for David’s comfort. “Here, watch me, yeah?” Patrick waits for David’s nod before skiing away slowly, staying on the flat ground perpendicular to the slope. “Watch my feet,” he calls over his shoulder. David directs his gaze from Patrick’s ass to his feet, which move a little like he’s doing a moonwalk forwards until he stops and looks back. “Want to try?” 

David hesitates but nods, shifting one foot forward. He doesn’t go anywhere. 

“Lift your back heel and push your front foot forward. You can use your pole, too.” 

He does it tentatively and he slides forward, feeling the rough snow packed down by thousands of skiers bumping under his ski. 

“That’s great!” Patrick says, his face lighting up. “Keep going.” 

He waves David towards him and David does it again with his other foot, and then again, and again, until he slides right by Patrick, a disbelieving giddy smile on his face. 

“Fun, right?” Patrick asks, grinning at him. 

“I will allow that it is not not fun.” 

Patrick laughs and says, “Oh, what an endorsement,” looking entirely too pleased with himself. “Alright, so, the top of the nordic trail is just over here.” He points with his glove toward a gap in the trees that line the slope, holding onto his pole as he does it like it’s second nature, like it’s just an extension of his arm. 

“Lead the way.” 

If he gets to watch Patrick ski away from him again, well, no one has to know how much he enjoys it. 

“So Ted said that you work retail?” Patrick asks once David catches up. 

“Mm. I used to own a gallery in SoHo but we had an unfortunate incident with my family’s business manager earlier this year. We lost almost everything and barely managed to stay afloat.” He gives Patrick a glance; Patrick actually looks a little somber at this. He clears his throat. “So now I work at a place called the, uh, Blouse Barn in Astoria.” 

“Ah. Reputable sort of establishment, it sounds like.” 

“Mm. Very much.” His ski goes off-track and he nearly does a split; he has to lean on his poles to stay upright as he lifts it out of the snow and puts it back where it’s supposed to be. Patrick seems to know what’s good for him, though, and doesn’t comment on it. 

“Do you miss your old job?” 

“Very much,” David says again, trying to concentrate on keeping up with Patrick, who seems to ski just as easily as walk. “I loved feeling like I was _doing_ something, and curating exactly the space I wanted. The Barn’s owner is a nice person, but our tastes don’t exactly mesh?” 

“I’ve always wanted to own my own business,” Patrick says thoughtfully. He pushes the band of his hat up his forehead with his wrist. “I thought I’d only be freelancing for a short while after I moved to the city, but it’s been almost a year and I just can’t seem to find the right idea.” 

“Ideas are the easy part,” David says, and pushes into a beautiful glide, if he does say so himself. 

“Nice one,” Patrick says approvingly. David flushes. “So you’re saying you want a future other than what the Blouse Barn can offer you?” 

“Okay, please stop saying ‘Blouse Barn’ like that.” 

“Like what?” Patrick asks innocently. 

“Like you know exactly the type of ‘clothing’ we sell. That image should not in any way be associated with your image of me.” 

“Oh, it’s not,” Patrick says, and the strange emphasis he uses makes David glance over at him, but he’s ducking his head and David can’t get a good read on what exactly he means by it. 

“Also, it’s ‘the goddamn Blouse Barn.’ Cursing mandatory.” 

“Ah, got it. So what’s next, after the goddamn Blouse Barn?” He looks inordinately pleased with himself when David laughs. 

“I want to open my own store,” he confesses. 

Before he can elaborate, another couple — _a_ couple, a real couple — snowshoe past at that moment, waving cheerfully, and Patrick gives them a nod and a smile like it comes easily for him, like he greets neighbors he doesn’t even know. 

What a strange person. 

“Your own store?” Patrick prompts gently, like he cares, like he’s interested, like what David says matters. 

“Where I could source locally-made high-quality products on a consignment basis,” he says, speaking aloud for the first time the vision behind pages and pages in his notebook; he’s not sure why he’s telling this to _Patrick_ , of all people. “I want to create the vision that’s just… mine. No Wendy, no patrons, just me.” 

“That sounds wonderful, David.” 

The praise is a little much, so David just hums and focuses on skiing. 

At one point, the conversation turns to the Christmas music that was mysteriously still playing on the local radio in the rental shack, and Patrick starts singing a bastardized version of the 12 Days of Christmas specifically to torture David, laughing so much through the words that half of them are incomprehensible. 

Patrick’s lip curls up and his eyes are brighter than the winter sky and he really is beautiful when he laughs. 

David’s so distracted by him that he doesn’t even notice that the tracks are disturbed ahead until his skis go out from under him and he lands on his ass in the snow, stunned. Patrick keeps laughing and slides down right next to him, just like he promised he would. 

While David is processing that he’s _sitting in the snow_ , someone zooms past them on weird short skis and as they scuff the turn their skis send a spray of snow into David’s face. 

David’s mouth drops open in shock — A, what the fuck, and B, it’s _cold_ — and the next thing he knows, Patrick is gently wiping snow from his face, the thumb of his glove brushing across David’s eyelid. 

He’s so close and his laughing mouth softens to something serious, something meant, as he leans closer, somehow looking down at David. 

His gloved thumb wipes at David’s lower lip, tugging it gently, snow crystals melting one by one on David’s sleeve, on Patrick’s glove, on Patrick’s flushed cheek. 

And David has never before found snow to be arousing before but holy shit, that look on Patrick’s face, the snowflake melting wet into the pink of his lip; he wants to never move and he wants to crash their mouths together and he wants that look directed at him cuddled on the sofa doing a goddamn crossword together and he wants that look sprawled breathless on mussed sheets in the dark and under the blue sky and first thing in the morning over coffee and arguing over dinner. 

He wants to know how Patrick tastes pink and warm in the snow and when he’s laughing at David and when he’s serious and thoughtful and David thinks for a second that he’d like to press his mouth to Patrick’s bare shoulder. 

A dog barks and Patrick blinks and the moment dissolves in his wry smile. Patrick pushes himself to standing and then helps David up, bearing David’s weight on his arm without complaint. 

What – _what_ — 

“Lunch?” Patrick offers, brushing snow off his pants. “Late lunch, I guess.” He squints up at the sun, which is already making its way behind the trees; this far north, David supposes, there’s not much daylight on the outer edges of the year. David catches his eye and Patrick smiles like they share something now, a secret warm understanding. 

They only manage another half hour of skiing after “lunch,” after which David proclaims that he’s more made up for all of the exercising he neglected this year and would like a long soak and a nap. Patrick accepts this with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth and David is gratified to see him limping almost as much as David is after they return their skis and their legs have to remember how to walk normally. 

He would _like_ to be limping for more fun reasons, he thinks, but then he says that out loud and Patrick blushes and he feels like maybe this was worth it. 

** 

“Happy New Year!” Alexis cheers as soon as they get inside the condo, holding out champagne flutes in her fingers manicured with off-white polish. 

“Midnight is _several_ hours away,” David says, but he takes one anyway and gingerly pats the dog’s head when it approaches him with its tail wagging. 

“We have plenty,” Ted tells them proudly, and he opens the fridge to show off a truly dangerous amount of champagne bottles. “It’s zhampagne, but it should do the trick.” 

“Wow, look at that,” Patrick says faintly. 

“It’s almost enough to make me forget the hours of exercise that you tricked me into doing,” David says. 

“Would we say ‘tricked?’” 

“I was promised at least an hour more lodge-time than I was given.” 

Patrick laughs. “Don’t worry, David; next time I’ll make sure to allot plenty of time in front of the lodge’s fireplace. Just so I know, will you be requiring a steady supply of hot toddies as well?” 

“Yes,” David says, surprised to find himself smiling back at him. 

Patrick nudges him with his elbow and raises his eyebrows at the open packet of crackers on the kitchen counter. 

“Are those up for grabs, Ted?” 

“Of course, bud!” 

Patrick takes a dinner plate from the cabinet and shakes the packet of crackers over it to lay some out in a semicircle, then pokes his head into the fridge and comes out with a block of cheese. He hands the whole thing to David with a knife and a proud look. 

“For your soak,” he says. 

David looks at Ted’s confused face and decides that explaining would be too difficult, so he leaves with his crackers and cheese and zhampagne. It’s difficult to luxuriate in a poly-something bathtub/shower combo, but he does his best. 

_You’re an asshole and I kind of like you_ , he rehearses in his head as he dresses for the evening. He folds Patrick’s sweatshirt and leaves it on top of his duffel. _Do you want to get dinner sometime?_ That’s how normal people do it, right? They ask each other out to dinner? 

There’s a knock at the door and David says _Come in_ and Patrick enters with a bashful look on his face. 

“I left your sweatshirt on your bag,” David says, pointing at it. 

“Oh, thanks. I’m just going to hop in the shower, if you’re done,” Patrick says. He eyes David’s AMI Paris turtleneck with its holiday-appropriate silver sequins but he doesn’t say anything. It’s tight across David’s chest and Patrick’s gaze lingers and David thinks _I want you_ aggressively at him. 

He rubs moisturizer into the backs of his hands and the words stick in the hollow of his throat: _Would you like to get dinner with me?_ Patrick leaves before he can get them unstuck. 

Back in the living room, blue velvet blazer completing his look, he joins Alexis and Ted and picks up Patrick’s book, meaning to skim through it while they canoodle on the other couch. 

Weirdly, he ends up engrossed in it, although he’s careful to keep the place of the ski rental receipt bookmark Patrick had stuck in its pages. He vaguely recognizes the story as something they’d read in school, but when he suffered through it back then it definitely did not start with _Bro!_

“Good book?” Alexis asks, and he looks up to see Ted taking the dog off to their room, cooing about dinner time. 

_Hic sunt dracones_ , he thinks to himself. Alexis smiles at him and takes a sip of zhampagne and she just looks so content that he can’t bring himself to sneer. 

“It’s Patrick’s.” 

“I know it is. He was reading it when we left this morning. Did you two have a nice day?” She waggles her eyebrows and he rolls his eyes. 

“We went skiing. That’s it.” 

“You’re reading his book, though. Like, _reading_ it, voluntarily. And you haven’t argued _once_ since you got back. _And_ you shared a bed last night.” 

“Oh my god.” 

“I’m just putting pieces together,” she says, entirely uninnocently, plucking at the skirt of her dress. 

“Well, don’t.” 

“It’s not my fault if the image on the puzzle box spells S-E-X.” 

They can hear the water shut off — the pipes in this place must be _old_ — and she grins at him and he does not think about Patrick getting out of the shower, dripping wet, wiping at his face with the towel before — Jesus Christ. 

“You are an evil person,” he informs Alexis. She shrugs and folds her legs up under herself. 

“He’s got a good butt.” 

“Who says I was looking?” 

“Your face did.” 

He groans and drops his head back. “This isn’t good, though, right? Like, he’s not good for me. I’m not good for him.” 

“Who says?” She wrinkles her forehead and tilts her head, her gold chandelier earrings swaying. “Look, David.” She taps his arm. “David.” He glances over at her and she has a soft expression on her face. He doesn’t know what to do with it; this isn’t how they are with each other. “I know you got off on the wrong foot for whatever reason, but Ted says he’s a good person.” 

“And I’m me,” he says, staring down at the book cover again. It’s bright bright blue, with a red _b_ entwined with a black dragon. It’s not something he would ever have picked out himself. 

“Yeah, but you like him and he likes you. You make each other laugh when you’re not being a dick to everyone around you.” 

“Yeah, see —” 

“David. This could be good for you. It’s a whole new year in a few hours. You could have a good one, if you want.” 

He looks at her again and his eyes are a little wet with hope and the thing in his chest, this dragon twined around his red red heart that makes him so undesirable; he wants the unapologetic blue. 

He wants the possibility of happiness, of laughter, of waking up to Patrick saying _Coffee’s ready_ with a gentle smile. If he’s honest with himself, he wants the promise of it. 

She tilts her head and her fingers touch his elbow and he’s so, so grateful for her, that he has her still. 

“Okay,” he whispers. She grins and he’s slightly afraid of the ferocity behind her teeth but he thinks he might trust her on this, just a little. 

Their bedroom door (fuck) opens and Patrick emerges, his hair still damp, his sweater a cabled stone blue. 

He and Alexis both look up at once, totally unsuspiciously. 

“Hi,” Patrick says uncertainly, pausing. “Is everything okay? Do I have something on my face?” 

“No, your face is perfect,” Alexis says, giving him the OK sign. David kicks at her leg. He misses, but it’s the thought that counts. 

“Okay. I’m just going to make a call and then I’ll be back. Is it okay if I use the bedroom?” he asks David. 

“Yes, sure.” 

“Great. Be right back.” He smiles at David, soft and _fond_ , what the fuck. 

After he leaves Alexis widens her eyes at David. 

“What?” 

“Oh my god, you’re so dumb,” she says. 

“Excuse me? Pot, kettle, hello.” 

She rolls her eyes and kicks him in the shin, her aim perfect. 

“Ow!” 

“He wants you to go follow him.” 

“He does not.” 

“He does!” 

“He’s making a phone call!” 

“That’s _code_ , David!” 

“Wha— It is not.” 

“Please. Like I haven’t used that excuse, like, a hundred times to get a guy to meet me in my bedroom in the middle of one of Mom and Dad’s soirees.” 

“Ew. Please don’t give me details.” 

“I’m just saying. I’ve literally never seen someone look so lovingly at you, and you’re Mom and Dad’s favorite.” 

“Maybe it’s because I don’t say shit like that.” 

“Whatever, David. Take a chance or don’t, just don’t complain to me about being single when you literally have an opportunity right now to not be.” 

David sits and thinks about this, ignoring Alexis’s huffs as she moves her attention to her phone. 

He wants it. There’s a much greater chance of Patrick wanting to just have sex with him than to actually date him, but if he could try; if there’s an option.... 

His life imploded this year and there’s a terrifying freedom in having nothing left, in knowing that he could fill the new yawning year with… anything. 

He drains his zhampagne and stands up, tugging his top and jacket down so they sit right. 

“I’m just going to….” 

“Have fun,” she says absently. 

The dragon squeezes his heart; his nerves are writhing moths in his stomach. 

He puts his ear to the door first, just in case Patrick’s actually on the phone with his family or something, and he hears his name. 

“... David Rose. Yeah, him,” Patrick is saying. “Stevie!” He laughs and David smiles to himself, wondering vaguely who Stevie is. Not a monogamous boyfriend, he hopes; Patrick doesn’t seem the type to step out on a partner, but David’s been put in that position before. “He is, is the worst thing. And he’s such an asshole….” 

David feels his face flush deeply. Fuck. Fuck fuck _fuck_ ; of course. Of _course_ that’s what Patrick has been thinking. He _is_ an asshole; it’s undisputable. 

So, it’s the sex thing. 

That makes more sense than Patrick actually _liking_ him. Patrick’s newly out of the closet and he wants to have experimental hate-sex with David, or something. 

_Hoping at the wrong heavens,_ the book had said, and he gets it. 

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, but at some point he hears Patrick say goodbye and he taps on the door. 

“Yeah?” Patrick calls. 

David opens the door. 

Patrick’s standing at the window, his hand on his hip, and he looks at David expectantly and David knows what he has to do. 

He strides up to Patrick and grabs his shoulders and crashes their mouths together, pushing Patrick up against the cold window, his mind gone blissfully blank; familiar territory at last. 

It takes Patrick a second to get with the program and start kissing back, but when he does one hand wraps broad and warm around David’s waist, pulling his hips in, and the other threads into David’s hair at the back of his head, gripping hard. 

David presses closer, licking into Patrick's sweet mouth as much as he can, relishing the tug of Patrick's fingers in his hair until they loosen and move to cup the corner of his jaw instead. 

Patrick holds David where he wants him; his thick legs fall open and one hooks possessively around David’s calf, not letting him go anywhere as he trails his hand from David's waist around to his back. His tongue is rough against David's, his chin rubbed raw, and his breathing grows heavier as David's cock swells against him. 

He kisses like he’s not new to this, like he knows exactly what he wants from David and it’s to fuck, not make love. 

It’s good enough. 

David lets himself enjoy kissing him for a minute, the hot slide of his mouth, the hard suck he gives to David’s lower lip, the control he’s barely got a grip on as he ferociously licks into David’s mouth, his fingers digging into David’s skin with fervid desperation. 

David hums and grazes his teeth across Patrick’s lip, biting; Patrick judders like his knees nearly give out and the keening sound he makes goes right to David’s dick. 

He’s never been able to resist going after more of a good thing, so he does it again and slides his hand into the back of Patrick’s jeans, gripping his amazingly full ass through his underwear. 

Patrick breaks the kiss, looking into David’s eyes, his mouth already rimmed red and slick with saliva. 

“David,” Patrick breathes. “Are you sure?” 

“Let’s get this over with.” 

Instead of pulling David to the bed, Patrick’s face goes blank and he steps away, David’s hands letting go too late. 

“Get this over with?” Patrick asks, his voice strange. 

“I mean, I figured we could get it out of our systems now, but if you want to, like, build up the tension more or whatever, that’s fine too.” 

“David, what the fuck are you talking about?” 

“Alexis said….” he trails off. He’s never had to convince someone they wanted to have sex with him; usually it was the other way around. 

“Alexis said what?” 

“Don’t you want to?” he asks, a pathetic feeling crawling up his neck. 

“David,” Patrick says, and scuffs a hand up the back of his head. His mouth is still shining with David’s saliva and he licks his lips. “I really do, but not — not if you’re just here to ‘get this over with.’ I was hoping for a little… more than that.” 

“What ‘more?’” His mind jumps ahead to, like, handcuffs and spreader bars and blindfolds, and it’s not like he’s _opposed_ , but that wasn’t what he’d had in mind. 

“I mean, like… you know.” 

“You want to have sex with me,” David clarifies, trying to tug his brain back out of the lust fog. It feels so much less sexy when he has to say it out loud, but Patrick’s face is still red and he’s not looking David in the eye and, oh god, it’s probably something he once saw in porn. 

“Very much,” Patrick says with an embarrassed laugh. 

“But something kinkier than hate-sex?” 

“ _What?!_ ” 

David’s starting to suspect he may have the wrong end of the metaphorical stick, here. 

“Okay, you’re going to have to connect some dots for me,” he says, furrowing his forehead. “You just called me an asshole.” 

“You heard that?” 

David shrugs. 

“I mean, yeah,” Patrick says, like it’s obvious. “You are. It’s great.” 

“I — what?” 

Patrick’s mouth twitches a smile and David feels like he’s fallen through a looking glass again to a different reality entirely. 

“David. You’re an asshole and you’re hot as fuck and you’re _funny_ and you love your sister and you have dreams I very much would like to be a part of and I like you a _lot_.” 

Every thought flies out of his head, leaving behind a row of exclamation marks. 

“Um,” he says. “Wh—” His face is warm but he can’t stop the smile spreading unbidden; he tries to tuck it back but if he looks half as struck as Patrick does he’s not doing a great job of it. 

“I would like to date you,” Patrick murmurs against David’s lips, his breath hot and close, before reclaiming them. 

David squeezes his eyes shut, overwhelmed, and all he can do is kiss back, opening his mouth to Patrick’s tongue, wrapping his arms around Patrick’s shoulders. 

Patrick holds his hips close and licks at David’s mouth, his fingers pushing up the hem of David’s turtleneck. 

This time it’s not desperation but something like passion that digs Patrick’s blunt fingers into the soft flesh of David’s back, wringing David’s breath in heavy shudders. 

This time he’s the one opening his legs for Patrick to step into, and Patrick lifts him onto the windowsill with surprising strength ( _outdoorsman who?_ ) and a bruising grip. 

He wraps his legs around Patrick’s hips and Patrick’s fingers press into his lower back, his shoulder; his hardness grinds unrelentingly against David’s and the window’s cold against David’s back but Patrick’s mouth is hot and soft, kissing David like it’s a form of relief. 

Out in the living room the television starts blasting a New Year’s Eve program, some underwhelming pop singer performing in Vegas or Nashville or London or something. David wrinkles his nose and Patrick laughs against his mouth. 

“God, I like you so much,” Patrick murmurs and David blushes; he feels like Patrick’s looking at him too closely, his pupils dark saucers inches from David’s, his mouth kiss-bitten. 

He kisses David again softly, gently, tenderly, and David doesn’t know what to do with that when it’s not driven by some kind of dislike. 

“Want to go out and suffer through CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage?” Patrick asks, his thumbs caressing David’s bare hips like David can think with him doing that, his heated gaze stuck on David’s mouth. “I want to take my time with you, maybe when your sister’s not on the other side of the door.” 

_Build up the tension_ , David thinks, and then, _Oh god._ Why is it hotter this way? Patrick switches from sexy to earnest like they aren’t antonyms; the hottest part of his approach to sex might be that he _means_ it, which means that David is truly fucked. 

_This is him?_ a voice in his head asks. _This is the one?_

“Yes,” David says. He ducks his eyes. “I mean. That sounds good.” 

“Okay.” Patrick kisses him again. “I am going to fuck you,” his promises, his voice low, and it’s not what he’d expected from someone wearing that sweater but holy god; his nose touches David’s, and David licks his lips, tasting him. Patrick smiles that stupid pleased little smile and presses a kiss to David’s mouth. “Ready?” 

“Fuck,” David breathes, reaching between them to adjust himself in his pants. 

“That’s the idea,” Patrick agrees. “Is that okay?” 

“I might die of frustration first,” David says seriously. “But. Yes. Okay. Good.” 

“Good,” Patrick repeats. He straightens David’s lapels and runs his eyes over David’s hair; if his hairspray can be trusted, not a strand is out of place. 

He pulls open the door but in the hallway he turns and murmurs in David’s ear, “But what a way to go, right?” 

“Mother _fucker_ ,” David hisses back. 

“David!” Alexis says, reaching one ringed hand towards him from her spot next to Ted on the couch. The dog lifts its head where it’s curled up at Ted’s feet. 

Alexis’s fingers clench the air a few times until he reluctantly gives her his hand. “How was your _nap_?” she asks with an entirely unsubtle wink. 

“We thought we’d watch the New Year’s Eve shows with you,” Patrick says, one hand gentle on David’s back as he passes by to sit on the other couch. 

Alexis squeezes David’s hand and she scrunches a smile at him before letting him go. Patrick’s arm is slung on the back of the couch and David sits there, too aware of the way the fabric of the couch catches on his clothes and how Patrick smells clean with a hint of aftershave and musk from — oh god. 

“You’ve lived in New York for a while, right?” Patrick asks. “Have you ever been in Times Square for the ball drop?” 

“I have no interest in being packed like a sardine in a crowd of people all urinating into their pants.” 

Patrick laughs and raises his eyebrows in acquiescence. 

“They don't really do that, do they?” Ted asks, looking both concerned and disgusted. Alexis pats his thigh. 

“Usually I spend it in another city: Dubai, Tokyo, Rome, Beijing.” 

“When was the last time you guys had a quiet New Year’s Eve at home?” Patrick asks, snagging a cracker and cheese from the plate on the coffee table. 

“Mm, before your teen modeling days, right, David?” Alexis says. She tugs Ted’s arm around her shoulder and plays with his fingers. 

“How long ago was that?” 

“Like I’m going to give you ammo to do age math,” David says sharply, then regrets it, but Patrick just laughs. 

“Fair enough,” he says. “How long do we think it’ll take for Don Lemon to get hammered?” 

“Oh, by twelve-thirty at the latest,” Ted says, shaking his head. 

“Who’s that?” David asks under his breath. 

“That’s a news anchor, David,” Patrick says. 

“Oh, no,” David says quickly. “I have rules against that.” 

“You’re anti-news anchor?” Patrick asks, amused. 

“You would be too if one had broken up with you while parasailing.” 

“Oh, sure.” 

“I suppose I could watch one get drunk on national television, though,” David says, thinking it over. It could be entertaining, at least. 

“It’s really good,” Ted says. “I love that guy.” 

The television goes back to its coverage of Times Square, which to be honest David hadn’t really been paying attention to with Patrick’s thick thighs right there next to him, and he finally realizes who’s hosting this bit. 

“Alexis!” he hisses at her. 

“Ugh, David, what?” 

“Why are we watching _Anderson fucking Cooper_?” 

“Oh. Oops.” 

“Oops?!” 

“Don’t tell me he’s the one who….” Patrick trails off. 

“Yes!” David says shrilly. 

“It was _years_ ago, David,” Alexis says flippantly. 

“Okay, let’s watch something else,” Patrick says, reaching for the remote. 

“David, come on. Anderson was never going to be the right guy for you, anyway. He was always gone at, like, war or something.” 

“What are you saying?” 

“Patrick, are you ever going to dump David hundreds of feet above the open ocean, stranding the both of you up there for hours in awkward silence?” 

“I…. No, I’m not planning on it.” 

“See, David? There you go.” 

“You are the absolute worst,” he says, folding his arms, trying not to think about Patrick planning on dumping him, or planning on… not. 

“At least you’re here and he’s there,” Patrick says uncertainly. “I mean, this is better than he’s doing, standing in the below-freezing wind and rain in Times Square for three hours, right?” 

“The show is four hours, actually,” Ted adds helpfully. He hands the dog its bone and it thumps its tail against the floor. 

“My god,” David says. After a pause, he adds, “Give me the champagne.” 

“It’s actually —” Ted starts, then cuts himself off at Alexis’s shaking head. “Sure thing, bud.” 

Patrick rubs the backs of his fingers along the velvet grain of David’s jacket shoulder and David settles a little. 

There’s something nice to being here, with Alexis and her boyfriend and Patrick, who might actually like him. 

It’s so bizarre. 

The year started off with his family losing everything, the universe (or, more accurately, the government’s Revenue department) essentially telling them that they didn’t deserve any of it, in addition to David’s long line of worsening romantic misfortunes and miseries, and ultimately a diet consisting mostly of mall pretzels and a curry from the place up the street from his new shoebox of an apartment. 

He’d been in such a sour place when he got here, and yet… here he is, comfortable in the arm of a man who wants to date him. 

As soon as he thinks it, his back tenses up. 

None of that makes sense. 

Who’s Stevie? 

On the TV, Andy and Anderson announce that there’s less than an hour left until the ball drops, and David’s leg jigs. 

“You okay?” Patrick asks. 

“Mhm,” David lies. He’d never actually clarified — is Patrick available to date? Is he trustworthy? _Is_ he good? Is he just going to do the same thing the goddamn dance instructor did and date dozens of other people at the same time, only telling David in passing once there was a possibility she’d passed on an STD? 

He doesn’t seem like the type and Alexis had approved and he’d said he _liked_ David. _I like you a lot_ , he’d said, and it had seemed like he meant it. David had wanted him to mean it. 

But David’s track record is so miserable and clearly his radar is worse than piss-poor and it’s entirely likely he’s just walked into another shitstorm to kick off the new year almost exactly like the old one. 

_Who’s Stevie?_

“Patrick, can I talk to you?” he says out of nowhere. 

“Now? The ball’s going to drop soon.” 

“Yes, now.” 

“Okay,” Patrick says simply. He puts his champagne glass down and stands, wiping his palms on the thighs of his jeans. “Do I need my coat?” 

“Yes.” 

He doesn’t want Alexis and Ted overhearing what’s bound to be his last meltdown of this year and/or the first of the next one. 

Patrick gamely gets their coats and hands David’s over. 

It’s a still, cold night, the stars bright overhead, and when David has trouble with the beginning words, Patrick gently says, “Want to go for a walk?” 

David nods and they head towards the same trail where they collided yesterday — was it only yesterday? — Patrick’s hand stuffed into his pockets, David’s brain swirling with half-formed sentences. 

Up the mountain the slopes are lined with big lamps lighting the trails; there’s a crowd on the other side of the trees that seems to be waiting for something. 

“They’re doing fireworks at midnight, I think,” Patrick says, answering the question that David didn’t ask out loud. 

They step into the path through the woods and overhead the stars wink through bare branches. David’s breath puffs in front of his face and he wraps his arms tightly around himself. 

“David,” Patrick says, “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, or if you don’t want… me. It’s fine.” 

“No, I do. I do, I just —” 

“It’s fine,” Patrick says, but he has a crease between his eyebrows and he’s staring at the ground. “I’m sorry if I misread things.” 

David shakes his head, trying to rattle the words into the right order. 

“I’m not an easy person to know,” he begins. “I’m... difficult.” 

“I know,” Patrick says, the corner of his mouth twitching up. His eyes reflect the big lights up on the mountain and David feels like, maybe…. 

“You’re never going to be able to play a party game with me.” 

“I don’t know,” Patrick says thoughtfully. “I think if we were on the same team we could kick some ass.” 

“And I refuse to eat that fake butter stuff on a regular basis. I’m sorry, I can’t do it.” 

“Okay.” 

“And I will never sincerely volunteer to take the couch.” 

“Really?” 

“I mean, maybe,” David says, flustered by his tilted eye contact. “If we’re talking, like, five years down the line.” 

“You’re thinking five years down the line?” Patrick’s smile grows and David feels like he’s lost track of what, exactly, he’d wanted to say. 

He looks at Patrick’s big brown eyes and he hears _I like you a lot_ and he remembers. 

“Who’s Steve?” he blurts. 

“Who?” Patrick denies, still smiling, and David’s heart sinks. This is it. 

This is exactly how it happens for him; this is how love works for David Rose. 

“Steve,” he repeats anyway, his voice gone dull. “I heard you call him Stevie on the phone. Your boyfriend.” 

“My friend Stevie?” Patrick’s eyebrows climb up his forehead. “Stevie Budd, my best friend, who’s a woman? My female-identifying best friend Stevie whom I am absolutely not dating?” 

David’s absently aware that his mouth drops open. 

“You — oh.” 

“I promise you, David, I am not two-timing anyone.” 

“It’s just that that tends to happen to me, like, in general. It’s a pattern.” 

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Patrick says gently. He rubs a hand up David’s arm. “I can’t promise to never hurt you, but I can promise to do my best for you.” 

“You really want to?” David asks, his throat thick. He meets Patrick’s eyes again and Patrick smiles, small and soft and sincere. “I’m a lot to deal with and I don’t — I don’t think I can be… less.” 

“I would have some harsh words for the person who’d suggest you should be.” 

“Well.” 

David stops in the middle of the trail, then at Patrick’s look he rolls his eyes and steps off to the side with him. Through the trees he can hear the crowd chanting a countdown from ten, echoing through the woods up to the star-studded sky. _Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven!_

Patrick cups David’s face in one palm and smiles, his thumb brushing across David’s cheekbone, his cheeks and nose pinked with cold. 

_Six! Five! Four!_

“I like you, David, just the way you are.” 

_Three!_

David blinks. 

_Two!_

He parts his lips. 

_One!_

Patrick’s eyes flick from David’s down to his mouth and back up again before leaning in and David falls into him; it’s a clean, simple kiss and there’s no tongue and Patrick’s lips are a little dry and David keeps falling, keeps kissing him. 

Patrick wraps an arm around his waist and David holds onto Patrick’s shoulders; overhead, the sky explodes in green pink purple blue fireworks in offbeat succession. 

_Happy New Year!_ the crowd cheers and something hitches in David’s chest. 

The kiss breaks gently and David blinks his watery eyes and Patrick watches his face, maybe concerned, until David starts to smile and then Patrick grins up at him, elated, like he’s just as thrilled to have shared that kiss with David. 

“Happy New Year, David,” Patrick murmurs, his face flushed and eyes lighting up technicolor. 

“Happy New Year, Patrick,” he whispers, and kisses him again, this time bringing a little tongue into it; he’s only human and something about kissing Patrick just lights him up inside, brighter than any fireworks. 

It’s better than any New Year that David had ever had while wealthy and abroad, and he’s got an entire year of this ahead of him, if he’s lucky. He’s starting to think he might be. 

** 

(Later, close in the curtain-filtered dim light of their bedroom, Patrick will watch with a dark-eyed smile as David carefully removes his velvet jacket and sequined turtleneck. His gentle hand will press David back on the bed and David will be held safe in the attention of his gaze. 

He'll run a reverent hand up David’s bare chest, thumbing a nipple, and grin as David shivers. _It’s cold in here_ , David will protest. _Are you going to get to it or not?_

_I thought I’d take my time,_ Patrick will murmur, but he’ll shuck his clothes and then inch off David’s pants until they’re both bare. _Fuck, it is cold,_ he’ll say with a laugh, and David’s shoulders will shake beneath him. 

He’ll kiss David then, again, and press his wet mouth to David’s collarbone, just above his beating heart. 

David will finally close a hand around his thick cock, relishing the weight and soft warmth of it, and Patrick will loose a shuddering breath, flushing down his chest as David starts to pull. 

_God, you’re beautiful_ , David will whisper against his mouth, and Patrick will kiss him hard, bruising, like he’s collapsing into it, like he’s letting go and jumping. David will suck his lip and Patrick will gasp _Wait wait wait_ and reach a hand between them to touch David like he’s something to be revered. 

He’ll draw paths across David’s chest shoulders neck with grazes of his lips and David will tell himself to remember this, the time that someone wanted to be tender with him, and the thought of a next time will overwhelm him. 

David will surrender himself to Patrick’s heat hands mouth tongue; he’ll barely have the presence of mind to fumble for the lube and condoms he keeps in the outer pocket of his bag, and at some point Patrick will slip two fingers into his mouth to suck and he’ll whimper around them as he works his tongue and Patrick will watch, awed, as David arches to his spit-slick fingers pressing into his ass, his fingers scrabbling into Patrick’s thick sweat-tacky shoulders. 

_David David David_ , Patrick will breathe, pressing their foreheads together, giving David a hot wet kiss when he asks for it, and press into him slowly, steadily, relentless until he’s fully there. 

David will breathe him in, the hot sex smell of the two of them together, as Patrick thrusts them both higher and higher, jigging David’s legs up up and oh his back curves and oh his mouth wet hot tongue on David’s bare vulnerable neck oh his calloused thumb tracing up oh the line of David’s shoulder oh his hot breath panting oh the smell of him oh _Daviddaviddavid_ oh _yeah_ oh _please_ oh _come on baby_ oh _yeah_ oh _yeah so good god so good_ oh _David_ oh _oh_ ) 

**Author's Note:**

> *confetti emoji*
> 
> Patrick's book is Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley, because I 'attended' something like three or four virtual talks with her and Emily Wilson (translator of the new Odyssey) and Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles, Circe) and they were honestly a highlight of the year. Next up: working The Odyssey into a fic? Don't think I haven't already started brainstorming.
> 
> Also, I think this is the second fic where I've 'given' David a dog and the fourth (?) with significant scenes set in the woods, which sounds about right. 2021: MORE dogs and MORE trees.
> 
> Finally, this fic puts me at 180k words published in 2020, which is unbelievable. Thank you so much to everyone who read, kudosed, or commented on something I wrote this year, or cheered me on when I posted a snippet of something I wasn't sure about. You really, truly made it survivable. Here's to a better 2021!
> 
> You can reblog this [here](https://middyblue.tumblr.com/post/639040314485751809/your-guide-to-winter-trail-etiquette-davidpatrick) and find me at [middyblue](https://middyblue.tumblr.com) on tumblr!


End file.
